Just a note, this isnt about firing junior people fast. That is absolutely scummy.
This is about hiring/firing very senior, well paid people with lots of prior experience.
If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem.
This is about hiring/firing very senior, well paid people with lots of prior experience.
If you are hiring and then firing junior people fast, you are the problem.
I'm going to challenge this point of view. It is absolutely, and obviously, expected that junior people have a ton to learn, and they should be given leeway for that learning process. So yes, if you fire a junior person because you're not willing to put in the mentorship necessary, then I agree, you are the problem.
However, junior people really shouldn't have any problem with motivation and drive, and in those cases where I've had to fire people, I've always wished I had done it sooner. More importantly, their peers wished I had fired them sooner, too. A bad or lax attitude can be an absolute killer for team morale if the person in question isn't dealt with quickly and fairly.
Being a bit naive, making mistakes, and needing ramp-up time is to be expected, especially from a junior hire. You absolutely need to give time to correct that sort of thing, and firing fast is not a good move. Some of the best devs I've worked with needed a few months to ramp upbefore they hit full stride.
On the other hand if someone is dicking around instead of working, being insubordinate, refusing to try to improve, upsetting coworkers, etc., then you've got behavioral problems on your hands. And those are absolutely good reasons to fire if they persist beyond an initial stern warning.
Sometimes juniors have a hell of a lot of trouble admitting that they don't understand something. Consequently, they won't be productive because they not only don't understand what they're doing, but they don't want to demonstrate their ignorance.
If I were in your shoes, I would do a couple of things:
1.) Make improving documentation a big part of their improvement plan.
2.) Make it very clear that you value clarity above all else and actively encourage them to tell you they don't understand something.
Heuristics and rules of thumb are incomplete by definition, and a deep understanding of these dynamics is incredibly difficult to acquire :)
Most common causes I can think for this problem are: an indiscriminate hiring process that fails to keep out poor candidates, either defective operations or hostile work environment that results in excesive burn out rates for employees, irrational expectations from management teams (specially founders who struggle to make the transition to later stage startups).
How are you going to determine if that really was the problem?
Every time I've heard a colleague say something like this, (s)he is just utilizing a model in his/her mind to explain the behavior, and pretty much never attempts to validate/falsify. Pretty much always post hoc justifications.
These are all fine and measurable. Jumping from those to "lack of motivation and drive" is a leap.
That termination taught me a lesson to: * Only bite what I can chew.
* If I am not confident in doing the job, I should not take it.
*If I can chew very little, then I focus on expanding to take on more.
True Entrepreneurial Spirit followed.
A minor point. I recently had to let a junior level person go after "giving them a chance" for around 5 months. I did everything I could, extra mentoring, warnings, gentle pressure, lighter work and finally, an opportunity to shift into a simpler projects so that they'd get more comfortable. This was, as the article mentions, emotionally draining for me and unfortunately, the dislike split over from professional to personal. I let the person go and that's that.
Now, the relevant part of this comment, I hired someone else and because of the baggage from the previous person, I very quickly started getting dissatisfied with the new hire. This would have ended in a disaster if one of my other employees didn't tell me that this new person has only been on for less than a month and was doing okay.
Prompted me to re evaluate myself. So yes, hiring and firing junior people is a problem usually with the hirer but it might be due to things that you have to watch out for.
I know people say to keep ramping up the testing and difficulties of interviews but we've started to create a culture where all you end up with is people who are good at that, not creating value for the company. I once had to fire someone because they absolutely refused to fill out an annual self review that would have taken 10 minutes. (There were other similar events that lead up to this). Technically they could do the work just fine but didn't want to live in the real world. I had many conversations about attitude and working with the team. I don't know how an interview process would capture this. Incidentally, I see him at local meetups and he recently told me his is thinking about quitting his current job because their office moved 5 miles away and he didn't want another 5 minutes of commuting.
Firing for typical junior mistakes? Yeah, that's a problem. But, junior people are usually not just technically raw, but also employee raw. Not showing up to work or lying about causing issues will get someone fired.
To all the juniors out there, when you screw something up (and you will), be quick to raise your hand and say it was you. Then, shift gears to fixing and mitigating for the future. It's a lot like politics in that it is the cover up that almost always gets a person.
One time someone said "Yes, I am surprised you fired me." I can't even tell you how destructive that was to my team. To be honest that person should never had been surprised nor my leadership team, but it happened and it caused havoc. It took years to fully repair the damage. I think he just really liked the job and didn't want to leave. Also the person ended up going to jail for unethical practices just 18 months later. I actually fired him due to being full of excuses or on the line of disaster and never asking for help.
Also for reviews: no subjective remarks without concrete examples in writing.
People leave managers and not companies.
Yeah? How so? What is fast?
If I hire a junior dev, and I say "Hey, I do expect you to know how to program. Not well, I'll teach you, but you need to know how to code. Do you know how to code?"
And they have problems for the first 1-2 months, it's not my job to teach them something I expected them to know.
They shouldn't get through the interview, but they do, sometimes.
I wholeheartedly agree with this article, when it comes to execs you cannot get rid of one that does not fit fast enough. But that is the funny thing, you can take a person with proven results, stick them in a different company culture and they just don't produce. They can leave that company, go to another with a different culture and succeed all over again. With senior executives it really is all about fit.
I also agree with you, if you are burning and churning thru the bottom you have a serious culture problem and probably have some bad mid/senior management.